Ban’ei Horse Racing Episode 1

21.03.2017

There is an unbelievable horse race in Obihiro, Hokkaido. A horse competition like this one probably could not be found anywhere in the world no matter where one looked. The distance these horses run is a straight 200 meters. On this course, horses over 180 cm in height and exceeding 1 ton in weight overtake each other. Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say that they “walk past each other”. But that’s to be expected of these horses who run while pulling sleighs that are weighted down by as much as a whole ton. It cannot be helped that their pace is extremely slow. Furthermore, the horses can finally reach their goal only after clearing two obstacles (obstacles that look like small hills). So it’s easy to see, these races are not competitions of speed so much as they are battles of strength. In part one, we follow a young jockey who handles these boastfully powerful race horses.